News
Local

The B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected the version of events of a man appealing his conviction of trafficking up to 18 kilograms of cocaine by saying police only caught him with one kilogram — and it was for personal use.

Darryl James Wilcox was arrested in 2005 when he met his co-accused Nathanael Lucus Nesbitt in a Kelowna parking lot to exchange drugs. Police found 17 kilograms in Nesbitt’s truck and one kilogram in Wilcox’s vehicle.

Nesbitt has since been given a two-year conditional sentence for his role.

Wilcox, according to the court, was convicted in June 2012.

He argued he received one kilogram for his personal use. However, the appeal court panel did not buy his argument, based on evidence that a kilogram of cocaine would be an eight-month supply even for a heavy user.

The cocaine was also 90% pure, the court noted, “consistent with the high end of the distribution hierarchy.”

A witness — Nesbitt’s girlfriend who accompanied him during the transaction — testified that all of the cocaine was in Wilcox’s possession prior to police arriving.

The trial judge found that version more believable, the court said.

“Both propositions — that Nesbitt drove around with 18 kilograms of cocaine in his truck during the day, or that he went to deliver one kilogram with another 17 kilograms in his truck, were inherently improbably given the risk of theft of such a large and valuable amount of cocaine,” appeal Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick wrote.